On Grieving

I started writing this post last August, a year after my mum passed away and it is now a year since my dad’s passing. It is surreal to reflect and write when you always think that people will live forever. It has taken me some time to appreciate that they do. This post is dedicated to so many friends and family who have lost loved ones particularly in the last year, and not just from this awful pandemic.

Losing both parents in quick succession has had a profound impact on me. While I am at ease that they are not around to experience the fear and terror of COVID-19, I am sad that I cannot pick up the phone and talk to Mum or visit Dad.

I am comforted that they are in a better place. Their last few years were consumed by far too much pain. This required many visits to doctors, daily chronic medications and regular hospitalisations with the indignities that come with it. I am also comforted that they lived a long and engaging life, growing many enduring friendships. Mostly, I am comforted that I had the pleasure of their company throughout my life with exponential growth of feelings, memories and mementos. They will forever be remembered.

To live in hearts we leave behind is not to die” ~ Thomas Campbell

I can hear my Dad stressing on the whereabouts of my nephew or that his car license was not renewed. He was classic OCD and liked order and predetermined outcomes. He was a hard worker and took great pride in getting things done. He loved happy Bollywood movies even if there was a bit of skop skiet donner en trane in between. He could not handle the stress of Manchester United games so would go for a long walk arriving when the game was over, extra time included.

I can see my mother shuffling down the passage with her smile or laugh, hiding the pain it took to lift each leg. She was the consummate networker, keeping in touch with her friends and family. Dad was always aghast with the telephone bill which he eventually grudgingly accepted. She was a fountain of family knowledge which kept us abreast with the happenings of the wider family. I got to know about extended family through her. This has proven to be invaluable.

My journey from grief to acceptance required grieving and reflection. Sometimes I do wonder whether I am deluding myself. Does grief end? Is acceptance just that – accepting your grieving status.

On their deaths, I wrote a post on each of their lives which I am combining given the thread of one to the other in their 60 years of marriage.

I also started calling their friends and other family members of their generation. This, as a way of keeping in touch with them by being in touch with those they hung out with. It also allows me to keep up with wider family updates.

Do you not know that a man is not dead while his name is still spoken? ~ Terry Pratchett

I also trawled through items that were important in their lives. They loved movies and music contained within them. Dad made an extra effort to ensure Indian musical hits were recorded on tape which played endlessly in our car trips. I can still hear Mohamed Rafi and Lata Mangeshkar tunes. I also collected many songs that I wanted to remember them by.

Likhe Jo Khat Tujhe Woh Teri Yaad Mein

The letters I wrote to you were in the memory of you.

Hazaron Rang Ke Nazare Ban Gaye

Of thousands of colours, became a sight to behold.

Sawera Jab Huwa Toh Phool Ban Gaye

When morning came, they became the flowers.

Jo Raat Aayi Toh Sitare Ban Gaye, Likhe Jo Khat Tujhe.

As when the night fell, they turned into stars. The letters I wrote to you.

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The lockdown was also a blessing as it gave me time and focus to finally wade through the mass of scribbles, notes and memories to assimilate our family tree. I interviewed my grandmother, parents and other elders. I wish they were around for them to see it, and, importantly, to shed clarification and more stories about those that have long since passed on. I love stories, loved them since I was a kid. The family tree is a smorgasbord of hundreds of stories of ordinary but special people that graced this planet. I will continue to forage through the debris of memory and forgetting to lift out the special nuggets, facts, stories and pictures to add to the growing family tree.

She was no longer wrestling with the grief, but could sit down with it as a lasting companion and make it a sharer in her thoughts ~ George Eliot

In grieving I accept and in accepting I grieve.